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geojesse said:
With all due respect, how this will affect Porter's bottom line and their business model is not (and should not be) a criteria the city uses when evaluating this file. The idea that the city should say no because it might change the amount of legroom in the plane is just silly. The market will determine if passengers are willing to fly long distances in a C-series.
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I am saying that I like Porter now because of what it is - a niche, regional airline. Expansion into a national airline with regional jets is a strange and in my view unfeasible business case. Would Porter still attract the customers it does as a larger airline, without the comforts it now provides? Why should the city allow expansion of a controversial airport further into the harbour based on an untested business model? With planes that have not been fully developed that we know will meet the noise levels promised?
 
TOareaFan said:
I have never really seen a true value in pre-clearance of US customs.....at some point in your journey you are going to have to line up to clear customs......whether it's in Toronto or Seattle....it does not make much of a difference. (IMO)
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I flew Porter to Boston Logan Int. a couple of years ago, and I spent 1.5 hours at Logan waiting to clear customs. Pre-clearance makes a huge difference, IMO.
 
ShonTron said:
Porter does what it does well - and their competition with AC Jazz/Express is big reason why I was able to justify going Sault Ste. Marie early last month. (I've also flown to Timmins, Dulles, Ottawa, Midway, and Newark on Porter.)
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Yes, and it's important to underscore that many of Porter's destinations are ones that Air Canada couldn't really care less about. Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Thunder Bay and even Quebec City are good examples of those. Air Canada basically "let them have it".

But AC is absolutely not going to roll over and let Porter take the vital Toronto-Vancouver route. Apart from sizable domestic traffic, that route is very important in both directions from an international connections perspective: for Torontonians heading to Asia via Vancouver, and for Vancouverites heading to Europe and Latin America through Pearson. People flying in from Asia are simply not going to buy an extra ticket and pay an additional $500 to transfer to a Porter flight at YVR.

Similarly, LAX, SFO and MIA are important international hubs, and I think a lot of Torontonians fly through these airports, rather than to these airports.

I also don't think Porter has much of a chance with the Toronto-Calgary market. Again, Calgary is an important Westjet and Air Canada hub for service to Western Canada's regional centres, and Porter won't be able to compete unless it creates a second, regional airline for Western Canada.

What's left? Some sun destinations. People who want to fly to Cancun or Orlando are typically budget travellers and families with a lot of luggage who don't live downtown, anyway. I don't see Porter appealing to them.

I have never really seen a true value in pre-clearance of US customs.....at some point in your journey you are going to have to line up to clear customs......whether it's in Toronto or Seattle....it does not make much of a difference. (IMO)
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Apart from what Jay said, the other value in pre-clearance is that you can fly to US airports that don't have international traffic. Places like Columbus, etc.

For me, pre-clearance is all about managing my time. I would much rather wait in line before my flight departs than arrive late to a destination and get further squeezed by having to wait in line for customs.
 
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Hipster Duck said:
Similarly, LAX, SFO and MIA are important international hubs, and I think a lot of Torontonians fly through these airports, rather than to these airports.
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Uh, what? I've personally flown to SFO and YVR, 0and have plans to fly to LAX as well. And I know many others who have visited cities such as LA, Vancouver, San Francisco and Miami as well. Where do you get the idea that no one is flying to these places? I'd guess they're more popular tourist spots for Canadians than, say, Halifax or Saskatoon or Quebec City.
 
Hipster Duck said:
Yes, and it's important to underscore that many of Porter's destinations are ones that Air Canada couldn't really care less about. Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Thunder Bay and even Quebec City are good examples of those. Air Canada basically "let them have it".
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SSM, Timmins, TB all have 4-5 daily return trips by AC ....and typically at fares that are likely amongst there highest $/mile providing great margins on these routes....hardly evident of an airline that couldn't care less about the routes or one of letting the competition have them.

Hipster Duck said:
But AC is absolutely not going to roll over and let Porter take the vital Toronto-Vancouver route.
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I don't suspect they will....but Porter can compete well with AC as the very vital Toronto-Montreal route has shown. With limited gates/access at BB, Air Canada made the wise move of serving one route from there...despite having good frequency, all the same amenities as Porter, matching on-board service levels, allowing all that while giving people Aeroplan miles and, more often than not, offering the cheapest fares on the YTZ-YUL route......Porter continues to beat the crap out of AC on that route....the load factors aren't even close (I've seen it a bit personally but really rely on a buddy of mine who averages 2 return trips to Montreal per week....he flies AC on passes and is more often than not alone with his thoughts).

Hipster Duck said:
Apart from sizable domestic traffic, that route is very important in both directions from an international connections perspective: for Torontonians heading to Asia via Vancouver, and for Vancouverites heading to Europe and Latin America through Pearson. People flying in from Asia are simply not going to buy an extra ticket and pay an additional $500 to transfer to a Porter flight at YVR.
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Porter will get its share of the domestic travel and will code-share on the international stuff. They will be an attractive code-share partner as it will provide whatever airlines they partner with a distinction/advantage to offer their customers over whoever they are competing to on their Canadian routes.

Hipster Duck said:
Similarly, LAX, SFO and MIA are important international hubs, and I think a lot of Torontonians fly through these airports, rather than to these airports.
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You name 3 of the most popular tourist destinations in North America and really think that Canadians aren't travelling to them? Really? Yes there is a bit of connection going on but I am starting to feel uniquely un-Canadian for visiting each of those cities multiple times and all of them in the past year.

Hipster Duck said:
I also don't think Porter has much of a chance with the Toronto-Calgary market. Again, Calgary is an important Westjet and Air Canada hub for service to Western Canada's regional centres, and Porter won't be able to compete unless it creates a second, regional airline for Western Canada.
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Calgary will be the toughest of the markets to do well in but there will be that downtown advantage. People often forget that while all the oil work is in Alberta a lot of the oil money is made/earned on Bay Street.....those energy companies need to meet with their investment bankers and those meetings are DT ....passing by Pearson will be of great attractiveness.

Hipster Duck said:
What's left? Some sun destinations. People who want to fly to Cancun or Orlando are typically budget travellers and families with a lot of luggage who don't live downtown, anyway. I don't see Porter appealing to them.
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I don't live downtown but am surprised to hear that those who do don't like to go to Cancun or other places in Mexico.....but I bet those Thursday after work to Sunday night junkets to Vegas from DT will be popular.



Hipster Duck said:
Apart from what Jay said, the other value in pre-clearance is that you can fly to US airports that don't have international traffic. Places like Columbus, etc.

For me, pre-clearance is all about managing my time. I would much rather wait in line before my flight departs than arrive late to a destination and get further squeezed by having to wait in line for customs.
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I think an hour is an hour and it doesn't matter which end of the trip it is on. I am a "at the airport an hour in advance of flight" guy for domestic travel but always 2 hours for US travel....if flying to the states with no pre-clearance treat it like a domestic flight at this end so I gain an hour that I know I am going burn at the other end.

Doubt if anyone is building a business model for international travel on access to non-international airports like Columbus.
 
Okay, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. In a perfect world, Porter would get the change to try and succeed/fail in their rather ambitious business strategy in a free market with no consequences to anybody but themselves, thus proving either you or me wrong. I'll be willing to eat my words if they succeed. I don't actually care; I'm very ambivalent about the whole proposal, and don't wish Porter specific harm. However, I also know that the world of megaproject infrastructure expansion and airlines is hardly a free market, and that if they fail, we will be on the hook somehow.

I think my final argument is that you're simultaneously overstating the importance of Porter's core market of downtown Toronto, and understating the risk involved in a small company essentially "going it alone" to build capital infrastructure and invest in a new technology (the C series jets) that nobody has any experience with.

About the former: downtown Toronto is a powerful place with seemingly a lot of people with a lot of spending power, but it's not so big that it can sustain its own continental airline. Downtown is really Porter's niche - anything else is better handled by AC/Westjet. That includes everything from the suburban (and by "suburban", I mean anything north of Bloor street) and southern Ontario market, to transfer passengers from other parts of Canada, to international codesharers (there's a reason that non-Star Alliance flights to Asia from YYZ and non-Star Alliance flights to Europe from YVR are slim, and probably blocked; Westjet also took whatever's left). There's also the inconvenient truth that the Union-Pearson express will be up and running before YTZ's expanded runway will be, so the location advantage of the downtown airport will shrink. There will also be another politically-influential business interest that has a vested interest in keeping YTZ small.

About the latter: the business world is littered with examples of companies that were very successful in a niche market, and then ran themselves into the ground committing too many resources "innovating" - spending a lot of money to capture a market that they had no experience in, and losing sight of their core business. Buying a whole fleet of new jets that are still in the testing stage and going it alone on a capital infrastructure expansion project would be risky enough if it were any airline, but Porter is a small airline. I've noticed that the most successful airlines retain their original fleet and operations strategy even when they become gigantic. Thus, Ryanair and Southwest still fly exclusively with 737s, even though they have hundreds of them, and FlyBe with Q400s. Westjet only recently dipped its toes into using a different aircraft variant, the Q400, and only through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Westjet Encore (this is also 9 out of 123 total aircraft). I don't know. I'm not an aviation expert nor a successful entrepreneur (being generally more risk-averse), so maybe I'm missing something here. Still, based on precedent and an observation of the situation as it appears to me, this has failure written all over it.
 
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^I love posts that start with the normally discussion-ending "agree to disagree" then go on to continue the discussion ;)

I actually view what Porter is trying to do as "Westjet in reverse".......WestJet built a successful model of single-airplane fleet serving markets across Canada and limited American destinations and at some point your growth is capped so you move into the regional business to feed into the original model.

Porter built a regional service based on the Q400 and is looking at expanding that with the CS100 to expand their network to other destinations that, presumably, they would use their regional service to feed into.

I, too, have no way of knowing if it will succeed, but it does seem to me it's got a decent enough chance especially when you consider they have an advantage that WestJet doesn't and that is operational dominance at a particular airport. As someone else noted, however, I am not sure it should have anything to do with our decision whether to expand the capabilities of the airport.
 
I'm interested to see how Porter's competitive position changes once the Pearson express train is completed.

I imagine if Pearson had included a rail connection in its original design, that the island airport may be a lot different than what we see today.

International_Airport_Toronto_1973.jpg
 
Admiral Beez said:
I'm interested to see how Porter's competitive position changes once the Pearson express train is completed.

I imagine if Pearson had included a rail connection in its original design, that the island airport may be a lot different than what we see today.

International_Airport_Toronto_1973.jpg
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I don't know... The target of the Airport express is the airport taxis, busses, and pick ups. I doubt the existence of an airport train is going to sway someone away from the island airport.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
I don't know... The target of the Airport express is the airport taxis, busses, and pick ups. I doubt the existence of an airport train is going to sway someone away from the island airport.
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I don't know how much it would affect traveler/customer decisions...time will tell. What I don't get is this notion some people have that the rail line should be enough to convince Porter to move their Toronto ops to Pearson. Porter is distinctly different from other airlines serving Toronto precisely because they are at the Island.....the important thing is that they think this is an advantage and they are trying to maximize that advantage.....moving to Pearson would make them just like all the rest of the airlines and offering no distinct difference.

P.S. careful quoting posts directly above you which contain an image....I recently got a 3 day holiday from the board for doing precisely that ;)
 
Hipster Duck said:
For me, pre-clearance is all about managing my time. I would much rather wait in line before my flight departs than arrive late to a destination and get further squeezed by having to wait in line for customs.
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I'd much rather clear at the other end, and not have to worry about missing my flight because US Customs at Pearson is backed up ... again.
 
nfitz said:
I'd much rather clear at the other end, and not have to worry about missing my flight because US Customs at Pearson is backed up ... again.
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In my traveling life, I have missed exactly one flight.....and it was because of a horrendous backlog at US Customs at Pearson......now they have done a great deal to make that smoother, for sure, and the one time was an extreme circumstance but still, it points out what you are saying.
 
Will the executive committee discussion be broadcast today? They showed last weeks meeting
 
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